Marketing vs Design vs Copywriting

Who’s Who in the Zoo and Why They Matter

There are, out there, “creative types” that are vital to helping you become the most well-known brand in your field. Even if that field is car maintenance. The best campaigns – and by that I don’t just mean the ones that win awards at Cannes, but ones that will generate sales and get you new, loyal customers – are usually those generated by a creative team working hand-in-glove with each other. In an ideal world, the marketer, designer and copywriter hunker down over low fat lattes and let their experience, and their creativity, run riot. Ideas spark and flow, and out of that emerges that winning concept.

But it doesn’t always have to work that way. The team may be scattered across the globe, and in today’s world of professional freelancers it’s highly likely. That doesn’t mean though that the work is any less creative or effective, especially when each person in the team is an experienced professional. And that’s the real crux of the matter – experienced professionals know what they’re doing. They can take that experience and, because they’re creative types and are always open to discovering the ‘spark’, create a winning concept tailored specifically to your brand.

For most projects, the marketer comes first, then the copywriter, then the designer. Sometimes the designer and the copywriter can switch places. Nevertheless, each member of the team has a very specific skill. It’s not often that one person has all three sets of expertise.

As a client it’s vital to know what part each creative plays and why it’s important.

The Marketer

The marketer knows markets and marketing like the back of their hand. The marketer can see the big picture, what will be most effective for your brand, how to position your brand, how to grab and keep potential customer’s attention and turn that into sales. Instead of an ad in the newspaper they might know that the most effective sales pitch you could do would be to engage a street theatre company for a traffic light performance. Or not. It might be a billboard, a You Tube video, a brochure or even a social media campaign. The point is a professional, experienced marketer will be able to advise you on the best way forward. They also know how best to use your budget to achieve the end goal. They will help you plan a full marketing communication plan effectively to accommodate aspects such as copywriting, designing, printing, ad space, etc.

The Designer

Just because someone knows how to use graphic software doesn’t mean they’re a designer. Once you find a real one, you’ll want to hang on to them. In which case, you need to know this – they don’t make things pretty. What they do is create graphic solutions using typefaces, images, layout, white space and colour that will connect with the specific audience the graphic is intended to reach. Graphic designers take into account not only the product, but the age-group, the socio-economic status and the aspirational desires of the potential consumer. There’s a big difference in how a graphic intended for a 22 year old male college student is treated compared to one intended for their mothers. They know that to capture an audience they have to create a visual that reflects who your customers actually are, that your brand not only understands them, but is just what your audience needs and has been looking for.

Designers also create visual solutions that connect one business to another. Take BMR for example. BMR provides coaching services to business owners and was looking to sign up members of the Furnishing Industry Association of Australia (FIAA) for a 12 month business coaching contract. To make this happen, BMR approached the Association directly, with the offer of free business health checks for companies that signed up for the 12 months’ coaching. This is a win-win for both BMR and FIAA. BMR gets the contracts they were looking for, and FIAA gets members that will more than likely stay in business thanks to the specialised business coaching provided by BMR. Creating that message visually takes skill and talent. It starts with the right brief, and your marketer will know exactly how to write the clearest brief possible for your designer. They understand the needs of the designer as well as those of the campaign and even the printer.

The Copywriter

A copywriter is a different kind of artist. They love words. They know the power of words and understand that words live and breathe, that they lodge in people’s minds and compel them to act. Most people don’t know that and they believe that just because one can read and write, they can write copy. Writing great copy is a skill. Don’t believe me? Here are some of the most famous tag lines in the world. I’ll bet you can name each and every brand.

Outwit. Outplay. Outlast. (Survivor)

The Happiest Place on Earth. (Disney)

Impossible is Nothing. (Adidas)

Let Your Fingers Do The Walking. (Yellow Pages)

Each and every one of those tag lines was written by a copywriter. A good writer can distil your brand into six words or less and make it famous.

But it’s more than just tag lines. It’s the text in your ad, your brochure, your annual report, your tweet, your website, your blog, your article. And it all has to do the same thing as those six words; be truthful, entertaining, educational and memorable. It also has to generate sales. There’s a belief in the advertising world, that every copywriter has a novel in their desk drawer that they’re working on. It’s probably true, because a good copywriter is also a great storyteller. They know how to create a hero everyone will love. And they also know how to turn your brand into that hero.

Who are we? We’re the marketers. We are the best guide through the marketing jungle you could have.

Contact Us Today

Contact us today to find out how your business can benefit with a marketing consultation.

One of our friendly marketing consultants will ask questions about your business, industry, target audience and current marketing activities to see if our services are a good fit.

We can also collectively develop a very refined and polished design brief so that the designer or copywriter can create fantastic branded communications that are right on the mark from the outset.

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Bright Owl Marketing provide results-focused and affordable marketing consultants and support services for start-ups, small to medium sized businesses to help boost their leads, sales and profits. Just think of us as your outsourced marketing department, freeing you to concentrate on running your business without worrying about where your next enquiry or sale will come from.